So That Happened

Charmed? I'm Sure.

Well, At Least The First Name's A Match, Sort Of

No, There ARE Stupid Questions: Part II

Just when I thought my first experience wasn't enough, I now give you the following incident from yesterday:

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Picture it - Downtown L.A. I am in the middle of researching and surrounded by stacks of papers, but happen to be knitting at the moment (hey, I was waiting for a call). Nearby sits a woman with a cane. There is a microfiche machine next to me. A second woman comes in and has to use it.

Me: glances briefly over at the woman to my left as she tries to figure out how to use the microfiche machine (doesn't everyone know how?), and continue with my knitting.

Woman: fiddles with machine, sighs loudly.

Me: still knitting and - have I mentioned? - still SURROUNDED BY STACKS OF PAPERS. It is painfully clear that I am ensconced in that spot.

Woman (to me after realizing that she is going to be using the machine for more than one minute): "Excuse me...can I have your chair?"

No, I am not kidding.

Me: Silence. Silence because I am GOBSMACKED. Gobsmacked because this woman is asking if she can have my chair. You know, THE ONE I AM USING. The one I am SITTING IN RIGHT NOW THAT SECOND. Yes, THAT CHAIR. The ONE THAT IS OCCUPIED. BY ME.

Woman: looking at me as I TOTALLY ignore her and her stupid request.

Woman with cane: actually GETS UP and offers her chair to the hapless cane-free woman. I KNOW. "Here. You can have mine." Way to validate the stupid cow, right?

Hapless Woman: "Oh, no, that's okay. I didn't want to ask you because you have a cane." She then proceeds to TAKE THE PROFFERED CHAIR even though she just said she didn't want to take it from the woman WITH THE CANE.

Me: trying very, very hard not to stab a bitch with my Clover 7-inch straight.

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Sigh. I hate people.

All Quiet On The Knitting Front

I realized that I haven't written about my knitting lately; that is because it's No Joke Last-Minute Crunch Time for holiday knitting, and I can't put up any pictures of what I'm working on without giving everything away. Just know that I've been cranking (ha - I just typed 'cranky,' which is true - hello, Freudian slip!) out little presents like a machine.

Have you seen this year's holiday stamps from the USPS? This year's theme is Holiday Knits! The pictures on the stamps are done in Fair Isle! How cute is that? I saw the stamps yesterday plus Dawn wrote to me about them, so I figured this was breaking postage news and thus post-worthy.

Finally, last night I calculated how many yards of yarn I have in my stash. You know, just because. It's easier when you maintain an anal-retentive Excel spreadsheet. (Yes, I know Ravelry helps you to calculate your stash, but I haven't documented all my yarn on the site.) Anywho, my one rule was to tally the number of unused yards of yarn (as in I did not include yarn already used in projects) and came up with the following numbers:

52,039 yards, which equals:
- 29.57 miles
- 156,117 feet
- 1,873,404 inches
- 47.58 kilometers
- 47,584 meters
- 4,758,446 centimeters

Damn.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

Do you know what I love about the holiday season?  Yes, there are the copious amounts of food and gift exchanging and general feeling of merriment (not to mention the crazy shoppers, but that's for another post), but I love love LOVE the music!  Who doesn't love Christmas music?  One of our local radio stations, KOST 103.5, sure does - it plays Christmas music 24/7 starting after Thanksgiving!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

I listen to Christmas music year-round but have only recently built a proper playlist, which includes gems like the A Charlie Brown Christmas album by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and Nat King Cole's album, The Christmas Song.  There's Mathis and Connick, Jr., and Vandross and Houston, Barenaked Ladies and even Clay Aiken!  (Shut up - Clay's Christmas album is REALLY good.)

Here are the first five tracks from the playlist:

1. "All I Want For Christmas Is You" - Mariah Carey (Because it's the Best Song Ever, and if you don't think so, you are a blasphemer and must be shot)
2. "2000 Miles" - Coldplay (A beautifully spare acoustic cover of the great Pretenders song.  I love both versions but the cover is stunning.  Sorry, guys - it's not available on iTunes as it was recorded exclusively for one of KROQ's Christmas CDs.)
3. "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" - Coldplay (Again, it's the band's gorgeous take on the Christmas classic.  It is also not available on iTunes as it was recorded for another KROQ Christmas CD.)
4. "Last Christmas" - Wham! (Come ON.  It's WHAM!, people.  Need I say more?
5. "Christmas Wrapping" - The Waitresses (Awesome, awesome, awesome.)

What are some of your favorite Christmas songs?  I know - it's so hard to narrow it down.

In Which I Feel Like A Total Underachiever

Say, did you hear the one about the 18-year-old who passed the California bar?

Now you have.

No, There ARE Stupid Questions

And now, a transcript of a conversation I had yesterday at work:

Me: "Media Corporation Which Shall Remain Nameless - can I help you?"

Woman: "Hi. I just wanted to ask...well, I have the TV on and there are four different channels showing fire coverage."

Me: "Yes."

Woman: "I wanted to know if you could stop airing the fire coverage and instead change it to show cartoons for the kids."

Me (wearing a 'WTF?' expression on my face): "Well, no. No, we can't. We are live on the air for breaking news."

Woman (exasperated): "Why not? We can watch the fire on any of the other channels. You should change it and show cartoons for the kids so they have something to watch."

Me (matter-of-factly): "No. I can tell you right now that we are not going to stop our breaking news coverage to air cartoons for your kids."

Woman (clearly annoyed with the answer): "Well, that's a bad decision."

Me (biting my tongue so hard I think I drew blood): "I'm sorry you think that. Goodbye!" Click.

I KNOW.

Listen, lady, you want your kids to watch cartoons? Fine. Then go right ahead and pop in one of the gazillion DVDs I'm sure you own or maybe, oh, I don't know, CHANGE THE CHANNEL. Don't you dare think for a second that your problem of keeping your kids entertained is soooooo important that a TV STATION IN THE #2 MARKET IN THE COUNTRY is actually going to stop covering LIVE BREAKING NEWS because your little ones have nothing to watch. It's people like you who ruin TV for everyone. I am NOT kidding. GOD.

A Breaking News Haiku*

Santa Ana winds?
We don't need another fire.
Please stop. I beg you.

* written while watching live coverage of yet another wildfire. Sigh.

A Post-Holiday Haiku

I'm so thankful that
we went out for Thanksgiving.
Look, Ma! No clean up!

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, a time to eat, drink, sleep off the tryptophan, and - for my brethren - watch football!!  FIGHT ON USC!

I'm thankful for many things (like soup, lip balm, good hair days, and Vivaldi's The Four Seasons), but these are the two things I am most grateful for:

How could I not be thankful for having such smart and beautiful little nieces?

(Photos taken by me on November 8, 2007.)